GM Ben Cousins of EA's new free-to-play-focused Easy Studios believes the future of games is free, suggesting that "gating all of your content behind having to pay someone $60" is "exploitative" and "harsh."
Electronic Arts has been aggressive about trying new digital and online business models for its Battlefield brand, first with microtransactions-supported Battlefield Heroes and now with upcoming free Battlefield Play4Free. EA even has a new Swedish studio arm, Easy Studios, dedicated to free-to-play games, and the studio's general manager, Ben Cousins, has strong opinions on the evolving economic landscape and the shift away from retail. "I can’t think of anything more exploitative than gating all of your content behind having to pay someone $60," he tells PC consumer site Rock Paper Shotgun. "That’s a really harsh business model, if you think about it objectively," adds Cousins. "What we do is enable everyone to play the game and figure out if they like it. If they don’t like it, they can walk away and they don’t lose anything." Earlier this month, Easy Studios said that some 600,000 gamers have already signed up for the closed beta of Battlefield Play4Free since it announced the testing phase last November. EA has a staggered launch planned for Battlefield Play4Free's open beta that will first welcome players of Battlefield: Bad Company, BFBC2 and Battlefield 1943 on March 31, then will add the game's Twitter and Facebook followers starting April 4. The game is expected to fully launch during the spring.
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